The present invention generally relates to barrel carts (also known as hand trucks and drum trucks) of the type adapted to lift and transport drums, and more particularly to a barrel cart that is motorized to facilitate the movement of very large drums.
Manually-operated four-wheel barrel carts are known in the hauling and transportation industries. A particular example is a barrel cart manufactured by Valley Craft Inc. under the name FOUR-WHEEL EZY-ROL™ Automatic Drum Truck. Carts of this type may be capable of lifting and moving large drums of conventional sizes (for example, thirty and fifty-five gallons (about 100 to about 200 liters)) that may weigh 1000 pounds (a mass of about 450 kg) or more. Barrel carts are typically equipped with a device for securing a drum to the cart. A typical example is a hook for engaging a drum's chime, which is conventionally present as a protruding annular lip at the top and bottom of a drum and specifically intended to serve as a structural feature to aid in handing a drum with mechanized equipment. Alternatively or in addition, a barrel cart can be equipped with a hook adapted to engage the rim or bung hole projection of a drum, or with cables adapted to wrap around a drum. While two-wheeled barrel carts are available, four-wheeled versions are often preferred for handling larger and heavier drums.
Conventional barrel carts require that an operator manually push the cart, which in the case of very heavy drums can be very tiring to the operator and raise the risk of excessive strain on the operator's back and legs.